Iconoclastic Period Quotes & Sayings

But there were ulama who refused to accept the closing of the "gates of ijtihad." Throughout Islamic history, at times of great political crisis - especially during a period of foreign encroachment - a reformer (mujdadid) would often renew the faith so that it could meet the new conditions. These reforms usually followed a similar pattern. They were conservative, since they attempted to go back to basics rather than create an entirely new solution. But in this desire to return to the pristine Islam of the Quran and sunnah, the reformers were often iconoclastic in sweeping away later medieval developments that had come to be considered sacred. They were also suspicious of foreign influence, and alien accretions, which had corrupted what they saw as the purity of the faith. This type of reformer would become a feature of Muslim society. Many of the people who are called "Muslim fundamentalists" in our own day correspond exactly to the old pattern set by the mujdadids. — Karen Armstrong

I am sorry. I lost something there. Like a path I was walking that dead-ended, and now I am alone and lost in the forest, and I am here and I do not know where here is any more. — Neil Gaiman

A rising tide of desire threatened to swamp her like a tidal wave, washing away fear and doubt and leaving behind it the knowledge that in her topsy turvy life, she was certain of only one thing: she wanted this man, right now, and she'd deal with the consequences later....
"I want to make love to you," he said, his voice low and thrumming through her veins as if it were a music only she could hear. — Deborah Blake

There will always be two different sides to me. And each one loves you and Morpheus in different ways. — A.G. Howard

So to the wretched writer I should like to say that there's one body only whose request for your caresses is not vulgar, is not unchaste, untoward, or impolite: the body of your work itself; for you must remember that your attentions will not merely celebrate a beauty but create one; that yours is love that brings it own birth with it, just as Plato has declared, and that you should therefore give up the blue things of this world in favor of the words which say them — William H Gass

I think there comes a point when the outcome of a battle is inevitable but the fighting has not ended. Then the enemy becomes exhaustion and pain. A common enemy. Does the soldier holding in his entrails and facing the death reaper, care any longer what he fought for?" said Quain. — Adrian G. Hilder

Everybody is completely different. I think there is no formula for filmmaking. Everybody finds their own way of doing things. — Mia Wasikowska

There is a particular circle of hell not mentioned in Dante's famous book. It is called comportment, and it exists in schools for young ladies across the empire. I do not know how it feels to be thrown into a lake of fire. I am sure it isn't pleasant. But I can say with all certainty that walking the length of a ballroom with a book upon one's head and a backboard strapped to one's back while imprisoned in a tight corset, layers of petticoats, and shoes that pinch is a form of torture even Mr. Alighieri would find too hideous to document in his Inferno. — Libba Bray